


a tale of baseball and broken elevators

by Zoa



Series: The Reylo Tales: My Collection of Reylo One-Shots [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Baseball, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, ben is really bad at flirting, like really bad, piggy back rides, sprained knee, yeahhhhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 19:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoa/pseuds/Zoa
Summary: Rey has sprained her knee. The elevator in her building is broken. She lives on the sixth floor.Her neighbor, Ben Solo, has arrived in the nick of time to help, but there's one problem: she hates him.





	a tale of baseball and broken elevators

Rey stared in utter shock at the out-of-order sign that was taped haphazardly to the elevator doors. 

"I left for a single fucking hour and come back to this?” She exclaimed in a near screech. 

The situation wouldn't have been so difficult to bear had Rey not sprained her knee three days prior and needed the damn elevator to get to her sixth floor apartment. She looked at the compression wrap on her knee and to the stairs on her left, situated next to the elevator like a taunt. 

The burlap grocery bags in her hands are filled to the brim and weigh her down like a millstone as she trudges over to the stairs, cursing the elevator, the building manager, and especially Poe fucking Dameron for organizing the neighborhood baseball game that left her with a sprained knee in the first place. And she cursed herself for being so damn competitive and needing to beat her stupid hot and stupid arrogant ‘anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better’ neighbor Ben Solo at something which had led her to make a bet with him that she could hit a home run in the first inning.

She wouldn’t have been in this situation were not for him and his stupid long arm for catching the ball she thought she’d hit out of the field. Rey had been trotting proudly to second when Poe yelled at her to run and she saw the ball falling straight down toward Ben Solo. She’d had to push into a sprint and was forced to slide into the base to be safe, straining her knee in the process. 

The pain that shot through her knee was nothing in comparison to the embarrassment of having Ben Solo tap her thigh with his gloved hand and for that bastard Hux to announce her as out.

Her team lost because of that play. And she’d lost the bet. 

To add insult to injury, apparently her streak of bad luck was still running strong. The damn elevator had been fine when she used it that morning. Absolutely fine. Now here she was, standing before the stupid staircase, gearing herself for the painful walk up. Nothing could make her day worse. 

“Oh, shit. Of course the elevator’s broken.” A deep male voice opined behind her. 

_ Except that. Please, Lord, not that. _

Slowly, Rey dragged her vision to the right and of course, in all his stupid glory, Ben Solo was standing in front of the defunct elevator. He was tapping away on his smartphone as he turned away from it and toward the staircase, his black sweater, blue jeans, and torn up messenger bag oozing laid back college professor where she looked like she'd just rolled out of bed, wearing an old t-shirt and sweat shorts. 

For all she knew he was laid back in the classrooms he taught. But when it came to literally everything else he needed literally _ everyone else _ to know he was the best _ . _

The worst part of it was that he usually was, but Rey would never admit that. Although she would be willing to admit he had great hair, but only because she wanted to know what kind of conditioner he used. 

The man in question didn't look up from his phone until he bumped into Rey and sent her stumbling, putting more pressure on her knee than she'd done the entire day. 

“OW! You sod! Watch where you're going!” Rey yowled, trying in vain to regain her balance without anymore pain. Ben had the decency to look mortified and dropped his phone in order to reach out and help her. It clattered against the tile floor and Rey thought she heard a crack but didn’t care.

“Rey, oh my god, I'm sorry!”

If she hadn't been in dire need of help she would have shaken his hand off her arm, but as it was she needed the support. That didn't mean she wasn’t going to give him hell. 

“What was so interesting on your phone you didn't see me?” She snapped, finally finding her balance and glaring at him viciously. “A bear breakdancing with a llama?” The expression on his face - like he’d just smelled something terrible - didn’t bother her one bit despite her poor attempt to insult him. She just shrugged and added “well?”

“It wasn't that,” he replied slowly. “I was texting my mother, if you must know.” At that he bent down to pick up his phone and sighed at the shattered screen.

Oh. At least it wasn't a totally dumb excuse. A tinge of guilt swept through her for her unkind thoughts.

“What were you doing just standing here anyway?” He continued defensively, slipping the broken phone into his pants pocket. Rey scowled up at him, having to tilt her head back for her glare to reach his face because he was ridiculously tall.

“If you must know," she mimicked his tone. “I was trying to figure out how to get up the stairs without further harming my sprained knee since the fucking elevator is fucking broken!” 

It was delightful to see his stupid luscious mouth form an ‘o’ shape as the epiphany dawned on him. Rey was reminded of how many times - in the early days of them being next door neighbors when she hadn't known how much of an asshole he was - she would daydream about kissing those lips or fantasize about where else they could touch her.

Now her crush was long gone. Awash in a sea of dreams about deep brown eyes. Although sometimes she still found herself thinking about him like that. Sometimes. 

“Right. Your leg. I'm sorry about that, by the way,” he ran a hand through his hair and avoided her gaze. Rey frowned. Her injury wasn’t his fault. 

“It's okay. It’s not like you made it happen.” She shrugged. He looked guilty nonetheless. “What?” She asked, a hard edge to the question. 

“I guess I feel a little responsible,” he admitted. “I’ve been goading you lately and I think I took it too far. I didn’t mean for you to take it so seriously. I thought we were just…” he stopped and his cheeks turned pink. 

Rey’s face scrunched up in confusion. “We were just what, Ben?”

His eyes darted away and then back. “Flirting,” he mumbled. 

“Flirting?” she repeated, dumbstruck. Rey replayed every interaction she'd had with Ben Solo over the last few weeks in her head and some things she'd brushed off as him being a jerk came to light. A few months ago he’d been an ass about how long her dissertation was taking and rubbed his own success in her face. Whatever he’d intended by the implied insults he’d thrown at her, his arrogance had driven her to finish her dissertation within a year, breaking his record, just to show him up. Now she thought that could have been some awful strategy to encourage her. He’d commented on her freckles at one point in a way she'd thought was critical - he’d said something about how many there were and how long it would take to count them - but she wondered if that was his clumsy way of saying he _ wanted _ to count them. “ _ Flirting? _” 

“Yes, flirting,” he snapped. “I realize I’m shit at it but I didn't think I was that terrible.”

Rey began to laugh in complete, uproarious abandon. “Oh, Ben,” she gasped, holding her stomach. The look on his face made her control herself. “Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, really, I'm sorry. It’s just you… I started to _ hate _ you.”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman to say that,” he deadpanned. “I thought I was being clever."

“Ben,” she put her hand on his arm and managed to smile at him for probably the first time in a month. “You really are shit at flirting. But,” she added at the sullen expression that appeared on his face, “now I know and I can see that, through the veil of terribleness, you’re actually really sweet.” 

The surprise and delight on his face nearly took her breath away. “Really?”

“Really. But,” she held up a finger, “you have a lot of making up to do. You can start by carrying my bags for me.” She picked her groceries up and shoved them at him. But he didn't take them. Instead he considered her for a second, his eyes traveling between her knee and the stairs. She jiggled her grocery bags insistently but he shook his head. 

“I have a better idea. Put the bags down.” He moved past her and knelt on the first stair, his back to her. “Get on.”

Rey tried to puzzle out what was happening but something wasn't clicking. "Get on what?” she asked dumbly. 

Ben looked over his shoulder at her. "Get on my back. I’ll carry you up.”

“And the groceries?” She blurted. He nodded and she shook her head vehemently. "No, Ben, come on. It’s six flights!”

He sighed and stood up. Stepping very close to her, he leaned down. His face was inches from hers and Rey held her breath, unable to tear her eyes away as she waited for what seemed inevitable. But he didn't kiss her. Instead he pulled the groceries from her hands and resumed his kneeling position. 

“Get on my back, Rey. I’m not letting you walk up the stairs.”

Seeing he wasn’t about to relent, Rey bit her protest back and stepped up to the staircase to clamber onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. It was the first piggy back ride she’d had in… well, it was her first piggy back ride. 

She could feel the muscles of his entire body contract as he stood but he didn't wobble, not even a little. Rey tucked her chin against his shoulder as he began the long trek up, burdened with his messenger bag, her groceries, and her.

“Thank you for helping me,” she whispered and kissed his cheek. 

“Anything,” he replied. "I would do anything for you.”

Rey held him to that. 

And, two years later, on their wedding day, she promised to do anything for him too.


End file.
